Copyright: Its History and Its LawBowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
History
Copyright: Its History and Its Law
Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
Copyright -- History; Copyright -- United States -- History
It is at the moment of publication that the undisputed possessory right
passes over into the much disputed right to multiply copies, and that
the vexed question of the true theory of copyright property arises. The
broad view of literary property holds that the one kind of copyright is
involved in the other. The right to have is the right to use. An author
cannot use--that is, get beneficial results from--his work, without
offering copies for sale. He would be otherwise like the owner of a loaf
of bread who was told that the bread was his until he wanted to eat it.
That sale would seem to contain "an implied undertaking" that the buyer
has liberty to use his copy, but not to multiply it. Peculiarly in this
kind of property the right of ownership consists in the right to prevent
use of one's property by others without the owner's consent. The right
of exclusion seems to be indeed a part of ownership. In the case of land
the owner is entitled to prevent trespass, to the extent of a shot-gun,
and in the same way the law recognizes the right to use violence, even
to the extreme, in preventing others from possession of one's own
property of any kind. The owner of a literary property has, however, no
physical means of defence or redress; the very act of publication by
which he gets a market for his productions opens him to the danger of
wider multiplication and publication without his consent. There is,
therefore, no kind of property which is so dependent on the help of the
law for the protection of the real owner.
{Sidenote: Inherent right}
The inherent right of authors is a right at what is called common
law--that is, natural or customary law. The common law, says Kent,
"includes those principles, usages, and rules of action applicable to
the government and security of person and property which do not rest for
their authority upon any express and positive declaration of the will of
the legislature." "The common law or _lex non scripta_," says
Blackstone, "depends upon its having been used time out of mind; or, in
the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary." So far as concerns the undisputed rights
before publication, the copyright laws are auxiliary merely to common
law. Rights exist before remedies; remedies are merely invented to
enforce rights. "The seeking for the law of the right of property in the
law of procedure relating to the remedies," says Copinger in his
standard English work on "The law of copyright," "is a mistake similar
to supposing that the mark on the ear of an animal is the cause, instead
of the consequence, of property therein."
{Sidenote: Statutory penalties}
After the invention of printing it became evident that new methods of
procedure must be devised to enforce common law rights. Copyright
became, therefore, the subject of statute law, by the passage of laws
imposing penalties for a theft which, without such laws, could not be
punished.
{Sidenote: Statute of Anne}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account